


The Other Life

by kitlee625, Sarahastro



Series: The Darkest Timeline [1]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-26
Updated: 2014-03-26
Packaged: 2018-01-17 03:34:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,560
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1372402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitlee625/pseuds/kitlee625, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sarahastro/pseuds/Sarahastro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the other life, they are Phil and Melinda Coulson. AU in which Coulson and May make a different choice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> We also call this The Darkest Timeline, from the Community episode “Remedial Chaos Theory.” The Coulson/May backstory is similar to what we wrote in “Fast Car,” and this story can be thought of as a what-if from that one. Although the first few chapters are mostly domestic fluff, it gets quite dark at the end.

The first thing they do after leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. is buy a car and drive to Northern California. They both have money saved up, and Phil has always wanted to go wine tasting in the Napa Valley. They spend several days hiking through the redwoods, drinking wine, and eating simple but elegant dinners. It is their first vacation in years.

At the end of their trip they decide that Northern California is as good a place as any to settle down, and they drive to San Jose and rent an apartment. It has been a long time since either of them had to apply for a job, but it does not take them too long to find something. He starts out as a waiter, and she works at a temp agency but after a few months is offered a full-time job as a secretary. It is the kind of office job that she had been facing when she decided to leave S.H.I.E.L.D., but she does not mind it as much as she had expected. She even chats a little with the other women in the office. Slowly over lunch in the break room she shares the fabricated backstory that she and Phil had come up with. She is originally from Ohio. They met in college and started dating when they worked in the same office in DC.

“What brings you to California?” one of the women asks.

Melinda thinks about their final mission with S.H.I.E.L.D., how they had been captured and tortured before finally being rescued, how afterwards they had both been reprimanded for letting their personal feelings for each other compromise the mission. How Fury had told them that they would both be reassigned immediately to desk jobs at different offices, and they would probably never see each other again.

“We just wanted a change,” Melinda says.

When she gets home from work, the apartment is usually empty. On days that they are both working, they only have a few hours together in the early morning before she leaves and late at night when he comes home. She does her best to stay awake long enough to see him, although she is usually half-asleep by the time he gets home. Sometimes she only sees him for a few minutes, when she pokes him awake to kiss him goodbye before she leaves for work.

When he does not have to work though he comes by during her lunch hour to eat with her. He usually brings some fancy food leftover from the restaurant where he works. The other women in the office ooh and ahh about how sweet and thoughtful her boyfriend is. 

“How long have you been together?” one asks.

Melinda is not sure how to answer that question, so she picks a time almost at random. “About a year. But we were friends for a long time before that.”

“Has he asked you to marry him yet?” another woman asks.

“No.” Neither of them have brought up marriage. She assumes that they are working their way towards that eventually, but for now they are trying out having a normal relationship together. Before they left S.H.I.E.L.D., they had never even been on a real date.

“I bet he’s going to surprise you with something really romantic. He seems like a big romantic gesture kind of guy,” the first woman says.

“Maybe,” Melinda says. Truthfully, she does not really see the point. No proposal could compare to what they have already gone through to be together.

*****

If Phil is planning a romantic proposal, he never gets the opportunity to carry it out. A few months later when he gets home from work, he is surprised to see the light still on and Melinda sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, having fallen asleep while waiting for him. When he tucks the blanket around her more securely, her eyes snap open.

“Hi,” he says. “I’m sorry I’m so late. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“I wanted to see you when you came home. I have some news.” She pauses a second and then says, “I’m pregnant.”

“Pregnant? Really?” A smile slowly spreads across his face. He wraps his arms around her and kisses her, then bends down and kisses her stomach.

She rolls her eyes fondly. “You know the baby’s the size of a walnut right now.”

“I don’t care. That’s our baby in there.”

Even though there is nothing to feel, she puts her hand over her abdomen. “I never thought that I would be a mother,” she says. “Even when I was a little girl, I didn’t plan on having children.”

“You’re going to be a great mother,” he says. He watches her face carefully. “If you’re having second thoughts -”

She shakes her head and smiles at him. “I didn’t want to have children with just anyone, but I want to have them with you.”

*****

They do not have a wedding or get an engagement ring. Instead they go to City Hall and get married during her lunch hour. Her coworkers notice the wedding ring almost immediately. They all squeal and gather around her desk chattering excitedly.

“When?”

“How did he propose?”

“He didn’t really propose,” Melinda says. “We talked about it and decided to get married.”

“But why? Didn’t you want a wedding with a big white gown? It’s your day to feel like a princess.”

That sentiment is exactly why Melinda had not wanted a wedding. “We just wanted to do something simple.”

In the end the women in the office assume that she got married so quickly because she is embarrassed about being pregnant. It is not so far from the truth, actually. Phil had been insistent that they had to get married before the baby was born, although she told him that was ridiculous. “We don’t have to get married just because we’re having a baby.”

“Please, just humor me,” he had said. “I think it will be better for the baby. Don’t you want to marry me?”

She is not sure. She has never quite seen the point of marriage. But she knows that she wants to have a baby with him and raise a family with him, so she says, “Of course.” She even agrees to take his last name. He looks very surprised when she agrees to it, but it just seems right. This, more than when they left S.H.I.E.L.D., is the start of their new life. She is no longer Melinda May, S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Now she is Melinda Coulson, wife of Phil and mother of his children.


	2. Chapter 2

Their first child is a girl. Melinda is in labor for twenty hours, and by the time the baby is born, she is too tired to feel anything but relief. Phil hovers beside her the whole time, holding her hand and fetching ice chips for her. 

The OB/Gyn resident who delivers the baby smirks when she sees how nervous Phil is. “Is he a fainter? Because if he faints, we’re all going to laugh.”

Melinda wants to tell them that of course Phil is not going to faint. He has endured bullet wounds and torture, and he has seen plenty of gruesome injuries in the field without flinching. But instead she and Phil just exchange an amused look.

“I think I’ll be okay,” Phil says.

He does not faint, but he does cry when he holds their daughter for the first time. “She’s perfect,” he says in awe. She is perfect, if a little squished from being born, and Melinda cannot believe that they created something so amazing.

The second child, a boy, comes much faster. Melinda delays going to the hospital until they can get a babysitter for two-year-old Emily, and as a result Jake is born only half an hour after they arrive at the Labor and Delivery unit.

After he is born, Phil is cradling their son and talking softly to him while Melinda rests. She is almost asleep when he asks, “So how many children do you want to have?”

“Do you really think now is the best time to ask me that?”

“I was just wondering if this is going to be the last new baby I’ll get to hold before grandchildren.”

Melinda rolls her eyes. “It’s going to be a long time before Emily and Jake are having their own children, if they ever do. How many do you want to have?”

Melinda hates being pregnant, and given that she just gave birth, he says, “I think two is a nice number, and now we have one of each.”

“Really? Just two? I always thought we’d have four.”

“Four?”

“I grew up with three brothers. Four is a nice number.”

Phil wonders how they will afford four college tuitions, but staring down at the little boy in his arms he cannot help but want a big family. “Then four it is.”

The third child takes longer to conceive. On advice from her doctor Melinda starts recording her temperature every day to chart when she ovulates and makes Phil have sex according to the schedule. It seems like a lot of work to him, but she is as serious about being a mother as she once was about being a specialist. 

She is triumphant when she tells him that she is pregnant again. They wait and make sure everything checks out all right with the doctor before announcing the news to the children. Emily is almost six, and Jake is almost four, and all they care about is whether the new sibling will be a boy or a girl.

“I want a sister. Not another gross brother,” Emily says.

“No Mommy! A brother! I want a brother to play with,” Jake insists.

“We’ll just have to wait and see,” Phil tells them. “But either way it’s exciting. You can play with the new baby whether it’s a boy or a girl.”

One night when they are getting into bed, Phil says, “I wonder what our old team would say if they could see us now.”

Melinda immediately stops what she is doing. They very rarely discuss their past in S.H.I.E.L.D. “Why?”

“Just that things are so different now. We’ve both changed a lot.”

“Yes.” Even now Melinda is a woman of few words.

“Do you ever think about our old life? About our time on the MCU?” he asks.

“No,” she says. She looks sad but determined. “That life is over. We can’t go back. This is our life now.”

*****

Life is going according to plan until one day in September. Melinda is not feeling well when she wakes up. She says that it is nothing, but Phil knows that she must be feeling worse than she lets on because she calls him at work to ask if he can pick up Emily and Jake from school.

“Sure. Is everything okay?”

“I’m fine. My stomach just hurts a little.”

“Do you need to see the doctor?”

“It’s fine. Just one of the fun parts of being pregnant.”

“Okay.” He lets it slide but makes a note to insist that she see someone if she is still feeling poorly tomorrow. 

Emily and Jake are waiting for him outside of school. Jake has just started pre-K, and even though he was so upset on his first day that he tried to flee down an alley, he has grown to love it. The two kids immediately start chattering away about their days. Melinda often comments that the children, like him, tend to talk a lot. Phil smiles. He cannot wait until they have a third child in the car. He wonders what their new child will be like. He and Melinda agreed not to find out ahead of time what sex the baby will be, but so far they cannot decide on a name. He wants to name the child Steve or Margaret, but Melinda refuses. 

“I’m not naming our child after Captain America or Agent Carter.” He is hoping that he can change her mind in the ten weeks left before the baby is due. 

When they get home, he helps the kids out of their car seats, and they go inside. Immediately he knows that something is wrong. The house is cold and dark, and there is not the usual pre-dinner mess in the kitchen.

“Where’s Mommy?” Emily asks.

“I’m hungry!” Jake announces.

“Okay. Hold tight guys. I’m going to check on Mommy, and then I’ll make you a snack.” On his way back to the bedroom he notes no sign that anyone has been in the house since this morning. If Melinda is too sick to get out of bed, he is going to have to insist that she see a doctor. When he opens the door to their bedroom he finds her lying under the covers.

“Melinda, are you okay? I really think you should call the doctor if you’re feeling this badly. You weren’t sick like this with the other two.” There is no response, and he pulls back the covers and shakes her gently. “Melinda?” With shock he realizes that the sheets are stained with blood. 

*****

At the hospital they rush Melinda to the operating immediately. As he waits with the children, he keeps flashing back to their last mission with S.H.I.E.L.D. His mission debriefing had occurred while he was still in the hospital recovering from emergency surgery. The agent had gone over every detail of the mission, paying particular attention to the moment when he ordered May to return to the MCU with the scientists. Phil had tried to make her actions sound heroic, but he had to admit that she had disobeyed his direct orders by coming back for him.

“One final question,” the agent had said as he rose to leave, “how long have you and Agent May been having sex?”

As soon as he heard that question he knew that their careers in S.H.I.E.L.D. were over. There was no way that S.H.I.E.L.D. would be able to ignore agents letting their personal feelings for one another to override their judgement. They would have to be reassigned immediately, and the black mark on their records would mean that they would never rise much higher.

Melinda had come to see him shortly after the agent had left. From the look on her face, he knew that she had also been debriefed and had been asked the same question. She had gotten into bed with him and laid her head against his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” Phil had said, kissing her forehead. “I don’t know how they found out.”

She had sounded so defeated as she said, “I know I should have gone, but I just couldn’t leave you behind. I thought I could save us both.”

They had not talked about leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. together that day, but that was the first time he had seriously considered it. When he thought about a life outside of S.H.I.E.L.D., it had been so that they could have a family. It would be ironic if she survived being a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent only to die in childbirth. He blinks back tears and wonders how he can possibly do this without her.

*****

When Melinda wakes up in the hospital, the first thing she sees is Phil slumped over in a chair. He wakes as soon as she calls his name and rushes over to squeeze her hand.

“You’re awake.” There are tears in his eyes. “How do you feel?”

“Sore.” She touches her stomach, which is flatter that it has been in months. “What happened?”

“You were bleeding when I got home from work. You had to have an emergency c-section, but the doctor said you’re going to be fine. The baby is fine too. He’s in the NICU, but we can go visit him.”

Phil wheels her down to the NICU and stops her in front of one of the incubators. “That’s him.”

He is impossibly small, with wires and tubes sticking out of him. Phil sticks his hand through a hole in the side and brushes his finger against the baby’s tiny hand. He grasps it.

“He has a good grip,” Phil says proudly. “The doctors are monitoring him carefully. They said that there are some problems with his lungs.”

He moves aside, and Melinda sticks her hand inside and strokes the baby’s cheek. He looks so different from the way Emily and Jake had looked when they had been born. They had come out screaming and red-faced, their tiny arms and legs wiggling vigorously. This baby is so still and quiet, and she cannot even hold him. He looks raw as if his skin did not have a chance to fully form inside of her. She blinks away tears.

The nurse comes over and says, “Steve is doing very well today.”

Melinda gives Phil a look. “Steve?”

“You were unconscious for a couple of days,” he says. “I didn’t want him to not have a name.”

Despite the smile, she can see how exhausted and upset he is. She touches his hand. “It’s okay. It’s a nice name.”

“He’s so small,” Phil says. “I thought he needed a strong name. A superhero name.”


	3. Chapter 3

When Emily is seven, she starts asking her parents how they met. 

“Was it romantic?” she asks eagerly. 

Melinda always gives her the rehearsed response. “We met in college, and we started dating when we were working together in DC.”

“But was it romantic? Was it love at first sight?”

Melinda chooses her words carefully. The best lies are grounded in the truth. “It wasn’t really love at first sight,” she says. “We were friends for a long time before we started dating. But then after a few years, we fell in love.”

Even though it is easier to see her family now that she is no longer part of S.H.I.E.L.D., Melinda is not particularly close to them. They go back to Ohio sporadically, mostly so that the children can see their grandparents and great-grandmother. During their trips Emily spends a lot of time with her grandmother and great-grandmother asking questions about what Melinda was like as a little girl. She has trouble reconciling the rule-breaking girl, who was always getting into fights, with the quiet, dutiful mother that she knows now. 

“Really? Mom really did that?” she says skeptically whenever Melinda’s mother or brother finishes some embarrassing story that usually ends with Melinda being grounded or sent to the principal’s office for fighting.

For their part, her family cannot believe the woman that she has become now. She knows that her family does not completely believe the cover story. The Melinda that they remember would never work as an office drone, let alone marry a fellow drone. 

As the children grow up she wonders how much of their own personalities have been passed down to them. Emily is a sweet girl, more girly than she ever was, but she is fascinated with traveling to exotic locations. She collects pictures from magazines of places that she wants to visit, and she begs her parents to take them around the globe. But raising three children on Phil’s salary means that trips around the world are out of the question. Also, their time with S.H.I.E.L.D. makes it hard to get excited about traveling abroad. When Emily talks about wanting to see Rome, Melinda thinks about breaking into a building outside of Rome to rescue hostages. When she says that she wants to go to China, Melinda remembers running through the streets of Beijing chasing a terrorist. Intellectually they both know that taking their children on vacation will not be anything like those missions, but it is hard to get excited about seeing the Eiffel Tower when their only trip to Paris together had ended with both of them in the hospital with a stab wound (Melinda) and concussion (Phil).

When Emily is thirteen she announces that she wants to go on a trip to Russia with Sister Cities.

“It won’t be too expensive,” she says. “I can pay for the trip myself with babysitting money.”

“Absolutely not,” Phil says. “You’re too young to go to Russia alone.”

“I won’t be alone. There will be other kids on the trip and chaperones, and I’ll stay with a host family.”

Melinda and Phil exchange a look. They know that they are both thinking about their last mission together, the one that led to them leaving S.H.I.E.L.D. They know the odds that Emily will have any encounter with Hydra on a Sister Cities trip are astronomical, but it is hard to imagine sending their daughter out into the world alone when they have seen first hand what dangers are lurking out there.

“Your mother and I need to discuss this,” Phil says. “We’ll talk about this later.”

“It’s not fair!” Jake says. He and his sister are at an age where they fight frequently, but Jake cannot let any perceived injustices pass by. “Other parents let their kids go on Sister Cities trips.”

“You don’t have other parents. You have us.”

*****

Jake is nothing like either of them. Even as a toddler Jake was loud and argumentative. As he grew older, he focused his energy less on avoiding bedtimes and more on questioning everything. There is nothing that he takes on faith alone. It drives his parents and his teachers crazy, but secretly his parents admire his strong will.

He is athletic and excels at individual sports like running and karate, but he has problems with team sports because he argues with the coach and the other players. He even gets thrown out of a baseball game for arguing with the umpire, and when he joins his parents, he is furious that Phil did not back him up.

“Other dads argue with the umpire when he makes a bad call! I was safe, you saw it.”

“That’s not the point. Yelling at the umpire wasn’t going to accomplish anything.”

“Yeah, well, sitting in the stands doing nothing doesn’t either.”

Phil tries to stifle his own anger and remain calm. “There are more effective ways of getting what you want than yelling and throwing tantrums.”

As he gets older, Phil worries that their son is becoming too antisocial and makes him join the local boy scout troop. 

“I want you to think for yourself, but you need to learn to respect authority and get along in a group,” Phil says when Jake protests. 

Although he is prepared to hate it, Jake likes boy scouts. He likes being outdoors and learning survival skills. His troop leader is an aging hippie who teaches political science at San Jose State, and he embraces Jake’s rebellious personality.

Phil also hopes that boy scouts will be something that they can do together, but between work and taking care of the children, he is not able to chaperone a camping trip until Jake has been in the troop for a year and a half.

“Really Dad? You?” Jake asks when Phil tells him that he’ll be coming with them on their trip.

“Yes me. Why?”

Jake looks disdainfully at his father’s suit. “You just don’t seem like an outdoors kind of guy. I mean you’ve never gone camping before. The other guys’ dads go all the time.”

Phil and Melinda share a smile. He has survived in far harsher conditions than those found at a California campground. “I think I’ll be okay.”

Phil expects that this camping trip will be an opportunity to relax and spend time with Jake, but the other fathers seem to see the trip as an opportunity to show off in front of their sons. They may have office jobs, like Phil, but on the trip they pretend to be rugged mountain men. They show their sons how to start fires and pitch tents and navigate the woods with a map and compass.

Phil wants to point out that if you are really forced to survive in the wilderness, there is no guarantee that you will have fire starters or tents or a map and compass. But the look of admiration in his son’s eyes starts to get to him. Towards the end of the trip one of the father suggests that they stop at a shooting range on the way back so they can teach the boys how to shoot.

“Do you even know how?” Jake asks. “Mom would probably be mad if she knew you were doing this. She hates guns.”

It is true that Melinda is not a fan of guns in the hands of untrained civilians, and that she does not want them to have a gun in their home because of the children, but the thought of Melinda telling him not to shoot a gun almost makes him laugh.

“I know how, and if you want to do it, I want you to learn properly,” Phil says mildly.

At the range, the boys and fathers strap on ear and eye protection and line up in front of the targets. Some of the fathers are not bad. Phil tries to coach Jake on his stance and grip, but he can tell that Jake is skeptical.

“Can I see you do it first?” he asks.

“All right.” Phil picks up the gun, points it at the target, and quickly unloads it into the target. When he finishes, Jake’s eyes are wide with shock and admiration. He peers at the target, where there are only two small clusters of bullet holes, one in the head and one in the center of the chest.

“How did you do that?”

“I took a class,” Phil says. “It’s important to know the proper technique.”

After that Jake listens dutifully as Phil coaches him, and by the end of the day Jake is getting better.

“Can we do this again sometime? And take Emily and Steve?”

“Sure. I think Steve’s still a little young now, though.”

When they get home, Jake immediately tells his siblings and mother all about it. Melinda raises her eyebrows at Phil but says nothing until they are getting into bed that night.

“Did you really have to show off like that?” she asks.

“We both know that I could have done something much more impressive.” She nods and smiles slightly. “I couldn’t resist,” he admits. “Jake was so impressed by all of the other fathers. I wanted him to look at me like that.”

She nods. They have done such a good job of pretending to be regular civilians that their own children frequently complain about how ordinary and boring they are. Sometimes it amuses them, but sometimes they both wish they could let their children know the truth.

“I think you’re impressive,” she says. “You survived in those woods for two days with just your suit and a gun.”

“And those surveillance files, although they weren’t very useful.” He smiles at her. “I don’t think I ever thanked you for rescuing me.”

“I was just doing my job,” she says wistfully.

*****

Steve grows up to be annoyingly similar to his namesake. Because we was born prematurely, he is small with severe asthma, but despite that he tries to keep up with his siblings. He insists on the same swimming and karate lessons that Emily and Jake excel at, and he tries out for every sport.

“Am I always going to be smaller than the other kids?” he asks his mother one day after school.

“Maybe. You were born early, and Dad and I aren’t very tall.”

“Do you think I could get the super soldier serum?”

Melinda raises her eyebrows. “The what?”

“The super soldier serum. What they gave Steve Rogers to make him Captain America. He was little too, but after he got it he was big and super strong.” He looks so serious and hopeful.

Jake laughs. “There’s no such thing as super soldier serum. Captain America was just a publicity stunt back in the ‘40s.”

“Nuh-uh. He was a superhero. Ask Dad.”

Jake rolls his eyes. “Dad just says that to cheer you up.”

Steve refuses to give up, and as soon as Phil comes home from work that evening, he asks, “Was Captain America a real superhero?”

“Of course he was a real superhero. Why do you ask?” Phil asks.

“See!” Steve calls to his brother. “Jake said that he wasn’t.”

“How could he do all those amazing things if he wasn’t a superhero?”

Jake rolls his eyes. “It was just a marketing ploy by the government to increase enlistment and sell war bonds,” he says with the weary wisdom of a teenager.

“Such a cynic,” Phil says shaking his head. “I promise Steve, Captain America was a real superhero.”

“So do you think they would give me the super soldier serum too?”

“Who would?”

“The army. So I can getting bigger and stronger like him.” Behind him, Jake is rolling his eyes again, but Phil looks serious.

“That’s dangerous, Steve. Remember, it hurt Steve Rogers so much to get it.”

Steve looks determined. “I don’t care. I want to be a hero, but I can’t be one if I don’t get bigger and stronger.”

“You don’t need super strength or super size to be a hero. It’s not what you have that makes you a hero, it’s what you do.”

*****

Between work and three children, it is hard for Phil and Melinda to get time alone. On the advice of a co-worker, they start to have a regular date night once a month. Emily likes to watch her mother getting ready for date night. Her mother usually wears just jeans and t-shirts, but for date night she gets dressed up and does her hair. 

“Where is Dad taking you?”

“I don’t know. He said he found a nice restaurant in San Francisco that he wants to try. Don’t let Steve wait up for us. He has a baseball game tomorrow.”

“I’ll try, but you know how he is.”

“I know.”

“You look really pretty, Mom. Dad’s not going to know what hit him.”

Melinda rolls her eyes. “He should. We’ve been married long enough.”

Sure enough, when Phil comes home, he pretends to pass out from shock when he sees her. “Melinda, you look - wow.”

She rolls her eyes. “You act like I never look nice.”

“No, you always look nice, but you have to admit that it’s been a while since you’ve gotten dressed up.”

“Mom’s pretty even when she doesn’t wear a dress,” Steve says. “The guy at Starbucks gave her his number, and she was only wearing jeans.”

Phil raises his eyebrows. “You got a man’s phone number at Starbucks?”

She rolls her eyes. “The barista wrote it on the coffee cup.”

“Well I guess it’s a good thing we’re going on date night tonight. I don’t want you to leave me for a barista.”

Emily looks horrified. “Mom, you can’t leave Dad! He loves you!”

Melinda rolls her eyes. “Don’t tease the children.”

“Why are you guys always worried that your mom is going to leave me, but never the other way around?” Phil asks.

Jake snorts. “Dad. Be serious.”

“What does that mean?”

Jake shrugs. “You’re kind of a dork.”

They are used to the kids, particularly Jake, telling them that they are dorky or boring. It is just part of having teenagers. But Melinda can tell that Phil’s feelings are a little hurt, so she says, “I don’t think you’re a dork.”

“Thank you, dear. Ready to go?”

“Ready. Be good guys. We should be home by 11.” She kisses the children goodbye, and they drive off towards San Francisco.

“So where are we really going?” she asks in the car.

“You’ll see. It’s a surprise.”

She gives him a look. “I hope it’s not like the last date night.”

“I don’t know why you’re still complaining about that. We had a beautiful view of the city from Alcatraz.”

“We fell into the bay. The food was ruined, and we had to explain to the kids why we came home all wet.”

“I’m sorry. I thought the raft would be sturdier. But we saved the bottle of wine, and we weren’t even late.”

“You’re getting a little rusty at planning these date nights.”

“It’s harder than planning an op. Takes more creativity. But I think you’ll like this one.”

He pulls up in front of a bank in downtown San Francisco. “I bet the view from up there is going to be beautiful,” he says.

She peers up. It is twenty stories up. The sides of the building are all glass. “Equipment?”

“It’s in the back. I brought some climbing equipment, a bottle of wine, and a picnic blanket. I know you don’t like having sex on the ground.”

She smiles. “You planned ahead.”

“The key to a good date night.”

He is right. There is a beautiful view from the top of the bank. Phil opens the bottle of wine, and they drink and enjoy the view and have their first quiet conversation in a long time.

Phil says, “I wish I’d brought some cheese and crackers, but I was afraid they would get dropped when we climbed up the elevator shaft.”

“It’s okay. We can get something to eat on the way home. The kids aren’t expecting us until 11.”

He checks his watch. “Well if we have until 11-” He leans forward and kisses her deeply.

She rolls her eyes fondly. “This is nice, but what’s wrong with our bed?” she asks as she pulls him down on top of her.

“Just trying to keep the spark alive.” He kisses down her neck.

“I can spark you just as well at home as I can here.”

His only reply is a low groan, and for the next several minutes they are both too busy concentrating on what they are doing to talk. Afterwards they lie on the blanket catching their breath.

“Okay, that was really good,” she says. “But I still say that we can do that at home.”

“What if the kids walk in on us? They’re too old for us to wait until they go to sleep.”

She rolls her eyes. “What if a security guard walks in on us up here?”

“Oh Melinda, you know that’s not going to happen. How would they know we’re up here?”

“Fine.” She glances at her watch. “We should leave if we’re going to make it home in time.” She kisses him and puts her clothes back on. “Thanks for the date.”

When they get back home, the kids are all on the couch watching a movie. Steve has fallen asleep in his pajamas, but Emily and Jake are still up.

“Sorry,” Emily says before they can say anything. “He wouldn’t go to bed until you guys were home. He was worried that you’d get in an accident or something.”

Melinda shrugs and gently shakes him away. “Steve, sweetie, we’re home.”

He blinks his eyes open groggily. “Hi Mom, hi Dad. Did you have a nice date?”

Melinda and Phil exchange a smile. “It was very nice.”


	4. Chapter 4

The world is getting stranger. They do not need access to S.H.I.E.L.D. briefing memos to recognize that fact. Billionaire industrialist Tony Stark announces that he flies around in a metal suit as the vigilante Iron Man. A small town in New Mexico is destroyed in a mysterious power plant accident. 

At the Coulson house, the children talk about these things excitedly over dinner, while Phil and Melinda discuss them more seriously at night. They both know how to read between the lines to see hints of the bigger picture that S.H.I.E.L.D. is trying to cover up. The fact that fragments of the truth are even visible to the public makes them nervous. S.H.I.E.L.D. is supposed to keep these things away from the public. They worry about the world that their children are growing up in, and what will happen if S.H.I.E.L.D. can no longer protect them.

And then the Battle of New York happens.

School lets out early, and Melinda picks the children up. They are glued to the television as aliens invade New York. The images that come through are choppy at best, but they see aliens flying through the air, and Captain America in the street below. Then everything goes dark, and there is nothing they can do but wait and see what remains.

When the dust settles the official story is that the Battle of New York was a victory for the forces of Earth. S.H.I.E.L.D. was able to beat back the invaders, but the city was destroyed by the alien weapons. Quietly though rumors circulate that it was S.H.I.E.L.D. itself that launched nuclear weapons against New York once they decided that the battle was a lost cause.

After the Battle of New York, S.H.I.E.L.D. finally has to make its presence publicly known. Phil and Melinda are both shocked, though, when they announce that S.H.I.E.L.D. will be taking a more active and public role in protecting people. There will be a S.H.I.E.L.D. office in every major city, and S.H.I.E.L.D. agents monitoring everyone. Jake is immediately suspicious, but Steve is more trusting.

“They have to,” Steve says. “We need them to protect us. What if the aliens come back?”

“It’s wrong,” Jake says. “These changes basically amount to martial law. We have rights.”

“I’m going to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent,” Steve says. “We need S.H.I.E.L.D. to keep us safe, and I want to be a part of that.”

Phil and Melinda have been dreading this moment for years. They just did not think it would happen so soon.

“I don’t think we can keep waiting for him to outgrow this,” Melinda tells Phil one night. “I found stacks of comic books in his room today.”

“Captain America?”

“The Adventures of Captain Steve. He drew them himself. Captain Steve jumping out of planes, rescuing hostages, shooting terrorists.”

Phil smiles. “I wonder what he would think if he knew that his mother used to do all of those things.”

“It’s not funny. Steve is stubborn. If this is what he really wants to do with his life, we’re not going to be able to talk him out of it. And if he’s going to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, I want to make sure that he’s trained properly.”

The next day when Steve gets home from school, his mother is waiting for him in the living room wearing her workout clothes.

“Hey Mom. Going to work out?”

“Yes, and I want you to join me.”

“No thanks Mom. Yoga’s not really my thing.”

“Not yoga. I’m going to teach you how to fight.”

“You? Mom, no offense, but I’ve taken karate since I was five.”

Melinda smiles a little at his skeptical expression. “Then you should have nothing to worry about from your old mom.”

She goes easy on him because he is her son, but it does not take long before she throws him down on the mats. Another kid might be angry about being tossed around by his mother, but Steve just looks impressed. “How did you do that?”

As she helps him up, she says, “You shift your weight whenever you’re about to attack. Let’s try it again, but this time, try not to let your body give away what you’re thinking.”

Afterwards, while they are drinking water in the kitchen, Steve asks, “Is that what you and Dad do down there when you say you’re working out?”

“Sometimes. Sometimes I do tai chi.”

“Dad can fight like you?”

Melinda smiles. “Not quite. He winds up on the mats a lot.”

“How did you learn to fight like that?”

Melinda looks sad. “It was a long time ago. Before you guys were born.”

*****

Jake is not as quick to embrace the new world order as his brother. At first he just complains about it to his friends and family, but eventually he and some friends become involved in a student group at UC Berkeley that protests S.H.I.E.L.D. Things become increasingly tense between Jake and his father, and the two of them end up arguing almost every night.

“You have no idea what you’re getting yourself into,” Phil says. “You have to stop this.”

“It’s not right. S.H.I.E.L.D. keeps everyone under constant surveillance. People are being detained indefinitely - no trial, no jury, no charges. We shouldn’t have to live like this, constantly worrying that men in dark suits are going to come and take us away.”

Phil wonders what his son would think if he knew that he used to be one of those men in dark suits. At one time he had believed that what S.H.I.E.L.D. did was for the greater good, but now that he is a civilian, it is hard not to be afraid. Still, whether S.H.I.E.L.D. is right or not is not really the issue.

“What you’re doing is dangerous. Not just for yourself, but for me and your mother, and your brother and sister.”

Jake gives his father a determined stare. “They can lock me up if they want, but I’ll never stop. I’ll never pretend that what they’re doing is okay.”

*****

After Jake is arrested, Emily can hear her parents arguing late into the night. Their voices are too quiet for her to make out the words, but she knows that they are upset. She tries to talk to them about it, but they brush her off like she is still a child, too young to understand. She focuses on trying to comfort Steve. Steve cannot stand to sleep alone in the room he shares with his brother without Jake there, so he sleeps on the floor of her room.

Two days later they learn that the protesters have all been released. They wait all day, but Jake does not come home. She and Steve try to ask their parents what this means, but they do not say anything, just exchange worried looks. The next morning her father leaves at dawn and does not return all day. When the three of them sit down to dinner without Jake and Phil, Emily finally explodes.

“What is going on? Where is Dad? Where’s Jake? When are they coming home?”

Melinda’s face is impassive. “Your father went to get Jake.”

“So S.H.I.E.L.D. has him too now? What do they want? Why won’t they let Jake go? He didn’t do anything.”

Melinda does not answer. All she says is, “Your father won’t leave without Jake.”

When they finally return, they both look exhausted. There is a new fear and anger in Jake’s eyes. Their father, normally so unflappable, looks angry too. No one says much at dinner, but that night she can hear her parents talking in low voices late into the night.

The next morning Melinda announces to the children that they are going to start having lessons. They are sitting in front of the TV watching an episode of Firefly on DVD and eating cereal in their pajamas. All three stare at her blankly. She used to give them Cantonese lessons when they were younger, mostly because their grandparents would be horrified if they were not fluent, but it has been years since they did that.

“Lessons in what?” Jake asks.

“But our Cantonese is fine,” Steve says.

“Different lessons. We’ll start in the basement at 3. Wear comfortable clothes,” Melinda says.

When they go down to the basement they find that the old couch and exercise equipment has been pushed to one side. She has even taken the punching bag down and propped it up against the wall. The floor is covered with mats. 

Steve smiles. He has been sparing with their mother sporadically since their first lesson, but she has not spared with his siblings, who look skeptical. “Mom is really good,” he tells them. “She’s taught me a lot.”

Jake still looks dubious. He still beats his brother every time they practice. He gives his brother a shove. “Then you’re up first.”

The last time they spared, she had told him that he was getting better. He even managed to throw her down on the mats. However, he soon realizes that she had been going easy on him. In less than a minute she has thrown him down on the mats, and Emily and Jake do not last much longer.

“You need to learn to defend yourselves,” she says. She does not specify against whom, but after Jake’s detainment, they all know she means S.H.I.E.L.D.

Training with their mother makes their karate lessons look like a joke. It is summer vacation, and aside from summer jobs for Emily and Jake, they spend most of their time learning to fight. She makes them practices punches and kicks until they are second nature, and she has them spar with each other for hours, going through attacks and counterattacks.

Their father has lessons for them too. He brings home a gun and shows them how to load and shoot it, and how to disarm an armed attacker. He makes them practice loading and field stripping the gun over and over again.

“It should just be muscle memory,” he says. “You shouldn’t have to think about it at all.”

Her brothers are full of questions about the lessons - how did they learn those things, why do they think their family is being targeted by S.H.I.E.L.D. - but neither of their parents offer an explanation.

“They asked me a lot of questions about Mom and Dad,” Jake says. “What they do, where we live, how they met.”

“But what would S.H.I.E.L.D. want with Mom and Dad?” Steve asks.

“Maybe they’re living a double life. When Dad says he’s going to the office, he’s really leading a terrorist organization.”

Emily refuses to entertain their speculation. “It doesn’t matter. Mom and Dad want us to know this, so we need to focus on that,” she tells them. 

It is not as if she is not curious as well, but she knows that spinning conspiracy theories will only upset them. As much as they pretend to be adults, her brothers are still so young. They still need her to look out for them. She is supposed to be leaving for college in a few months, but with everything that is going on, she cannot imagine leaving home.

One day when Emily gets home from her summer job, Steve says, “Mom started teaching me to drive.”

“What? Why?”

“She didn’t say. She just said that it’s a good thing to know.” Steve looks worried. He is only eleven, and Emily wonders if he can even see over the steering wheel.

Hearing that is the final straw for Emily. If her parents think that things are so dire that they are preparing their children to go on the run, there is no way Emily can go to college.

She tells her mother this that evening while Melinda is making dinner. 

“Why wouldn’t you go to college?”

“Mom, don’t pretend like everything’s normal. All the lessons this summer. Jake getting arrested. Something’s going on. I can’t leave home now.”

“The lessons are just things that are important to know. Just in case.”

“In case of what?” Emily asks.

She does not expect a response, but to her surprise her mother says, “Things are different now. The world is more dangerous. Your father and I need to know that, whatever happens, you’ll be able to protect yourselves.”

*****

Phil and Melinda are taken in the middle of the day. None of the children witness it happening - their first clue is when neither of their parents are home for dinner. The police turn out to be a dead end, only promising to look into it before sending them away. A few days later they notice that the house is under constant surveillance by men in dark suits driving black SUVs. Why they are monitoring the Coulsons, and why they took Phil and Melinda in, are questions they never get answers to.

Emily finally goes to the nearest S.H.I.E.L.D. office in San Francisco for answers, but after waiting for two days to speak to an agent, she is told that they cannot confirm nor deny any ongoing investigations. When she tells her brothers, Jake immediately goes into the basement and spends the rest of the afternoon taking out his frustrations on the punching bag.

When September arrives, there is no question that Emily will not be starting college. She cannot leave her brothers alone. The three of them have to stick together. Emily gets a job as a waitress, and Jake gets an after school job, and they try their best to keep life as normal as possible. Family dinner continues to be a nightly ritual even if none of them are as good cooks as their mother. 

Most nights dinner devolves into an argument about what to do. Jake tries to convince his siblings that they have to flee the city and go someplace that S.H.I.E.L.D. will never find them. He has joined a group, The Rising Tide, that seeks to break S.H.I.E.L.D.’s grasp on the world through the free exchange of information. Through his Rising Tide cohorts he learns of a few remote settlements in the mountains where people are trying find freedom.

Steve is just as insistent that they stay. “Mom and Dad are coming home,” he says each night. “If we leave, they might never find us. We have to wait for them.”

Emily tries to mediate between her brothers, unsure that their parents are really coming home but not yet ready to give up hope. But as the days turn into weeks, eventually even Steve accepts that they are gone. A month after their parents were taken, Emily, Jake, and Steve pack up the SUV and leave the house in San Jose for the last time. They take with them a few necessities - camping equipment, a few clothes, the gun - and drive to a campsite far into the mountains. They make the rest of the way on foot, a journey to find other similarly-minded individuals, all desperately seeking sanctuary from the all-seeing eye of S.H.I.E.L.D.


End file.
